Jeff Parker

Tortoise

Concert Photos: Tortoise @ Empty Bottle (Chicago, IL)

Experimental instrumental quintet Tortoise played a pair of hometown shows recently, performing in front of welcoming crowds at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. The incomparable rock-dub-jazz shape-shifter garnered a “This Week’s Best Albums” tag for its 2009 release Beacons of Ancestorship (Thrill Jockey). Since then, it has released a 13-minute single (Ice Ice Gravy) and a Japan-only CD (Why Waste Time?).

As you wait for a new Tortoise full-length, check out photographer Drew Reynolds‘ captures from the performance, and then click on over and revisit guitarist Jeff Parker‘s late-2010 show with Andrew Bird right here.

Tortoise

Andrew Bird & Jeff Parker

Concert Photos: Andrew Bird @ Fourth Presbyterian Church (Chicago)

Whistling, violin-toting troubadour Andrew Bird just finished a makeshift residency at Chicago’s Fourth Presbyterian Church. Bird played three successive dates with Chicago jazz fixture and Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker. It’s not the first time that the cavernous venue has played host to Bird and his classically inspired pop, and judging by the reception — all three nights sold out far in advance — it won’t be the last.

Contributing photographers Sanchez and Kitahara captured these images of the December 15 performance.

Andrew Bird & Jeff Parker

Morrow vs. Hajduch

Morrow vs. Hajduch: Chicago Odense Ensemble

Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.

Chicago Odense EnsembleChicago Odense Ensemble: s/t (Adluna)

Chicago Odense Ensemble: “Soup”
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Hajduch: Chicago Odense Ensemble is the latest foray of Rob Mazurek (Exploding Star Orchestra, Chicago Underground, Isotope 217) into large-group jazz fusion.  He’s brought along some of his previous collaborators (Jeff Parker and Dan Bitney of Tortoise and Isotope 217; Matt Lux, also of Isotope 217) as well as some fresh faces (Jonas Munk and Jakob Skøtt of European psych band Causa Sui and percussionist Brian Keigher).

Circle of Animals

The Metal Examiner: Circle of Animals’ Destroy the Light

Every Friday, The Metal Examiner delves metal’s endless depths to present the genre’s most important and exciting albums.

Circle of Animals: Destroy the LightCircle of Animals: Destroy the Light (Relapse, 10/12/2010)

Click here to download Circle of Animals’ “Poison the Lamb”
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Producer/multi-instrumentalist Sanford Parker (Minsk, Buried at Sea) and saxophonist Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) have long and assorted ties in and around Chicago, where the two reside and contribute to the city’s vibrant underground.

Parker, in addition to his main gig in Minsk, has produced the likes of Pelican, Rwake, Unearthly Trance, Jai Alai Savant, Lair of the Minotaur, and Nachtmystium, and Lamont, outside of Yakuza, recently finished recording a solo album and regularly plays with other experimental metal and noise outfits (Decayist, Sick Gazelle) as well as improvised-jazz players (Jeff Parker, Ken Vandermark, Dave Rempis).

Each man’s résumé is a mile long, and now the two have come together to pay tribute to Chicago’s late-’80s and early-’90s Wax Trax! industrial scene with their new project, Circle of Animals. A diverse and widely recognizable cast of drummers rounds out the lineup on this release, with names like Dave Witte (Discordance Axis, Municipal Waste), John Herndon (Tortoise), John Merryman (Cephalic Carnage), and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) lending their talents.

Pre-order the cross-continental, improvised jazz of the Chicago Odense Ensemble

In the winter of 2008, Danish musicians Jonas Munk and Jakob Skøtt hunkered down in a Chicago studio with locals such as Jeff Parker and Dan Bitney of Tortoise, Matt Lux of Isotope 217, and composer/cornetist Rob Mazurek of Exploding Star Orchestra and Chicago Underground Duo.

Brought together by Brian Keigher, the group of all-stars combined their unique blend of styles in total improvisation, the result of which recalls Miles Davis‘ ventures in electronic music in the early ’70s. Loose ideas and grooves come together into well-developed electro-jazz soundscapes frequently punctuated by brilliant virtuosic solos.

Tortoise: Synergy Amid Writer’s Block

For nearly 20 years, the members of Tortoise have exhibited a synergistic effect on each other, enriching their assorted personal contributions to yield an amorphous, anomalous instrumental quintet.

Nathan Bell: Post-Punk Banjo

It’s a pretty safe bet that whoever coined the phrase “post-punk” didn’t envision Nathan Bell‘s music. Likewise, it’s unlikely that the average banjo picker ever envisioned the instrument being manipulated to produce the array of sounds that Bell wrings from his instrument.